Food, exercise and modern society
Some time ago I heard that there are now more people eating themselves to death than people dying of starvation. Of course, this was an extraordinary statement, because as far as I knew, hunger was very bad and most people die of it.
Malnutrition and hunger used to be the biggest problem in the world. And still people say, "Hunger must be eliminated from the world. And we're doing a good job of that, of course, but all that producing has apparently meant that there is still hunger in the world. And that now even people are dying because of too much food... I find that really shocking, man.
While you still see those commercials of crying African kids ... But you'd better show crying fat people eating themselves full, because that has now become the risk group. They are much more at risk even than those African children, at least, it turns out!
Now I knew that 50% of people are overweight, but that you should also be more afraid of eating rather than not eating, that's just now dawning on me. So I actually popped out of my own bubble, out of my own hypnosis. To start looking at the facts. What is it like now?
Modern Society
Of course, modern society makes it very easy to eat enough. You can grab what you feel like at the supermarket.
Feel like some chips? Sure.
Fancy a steak? Fine.
In the mood for anything at all? Great.
You don't even have to go to the supermarket. You can also have your food delivered. So "hunting," so to speak, is made very easy for us.
"Convenience serves man," shall we say.
It starts with us
We can keep living in our hypnosis and think that things are not going well yet and not everyone has enough food. This is true, in many countries it is still true, unfortunately.
But if we switch gears for a moment by thinking about what we do with all the food we produce... We eat it all! So it's not that there isn't enough food. Not at all. There is a lot thrown away and besides that we eat it! Instead of giving it to those children in Africa who are crying in their huts from hunger, we eat it over Christmas dinner or as we lay on the couch watching Netflix. That's what we do.
You might say: “Yeah, but if I don’t do it, it’s still there. And it’s not like the kids in Africa can go to the supermarket.” I get all that. But it does start with us. With you, with me—by not eating so much. Because then production will naturally be scaled back accordingly.
For example, if they normally produce 100 things and 100 are eaten, they continue to produce 100. If 50 are eaten then they're still going to produce 100, but if that goes on long enough then the supermarkets start buying less and then they automatically start producing less. It works that simple. It's a matter of supply and demand, economics. If we keep asking then the supply will stay there.
Supply and demand
Now you might think that all that food will come to the supermarket anyway, regardless of whether you buy it or not, but that's not the case. In fact, supply is often adjusted according to demand as well.
This was very evident, for example, at the beginning of the corona crisis. Namely, there were stores that worked with algorithms for purchasing, and as people started hoarding, they also started ordering more of one thing and less of another. This ended up making for great deals[1].
But this also means that with your buying habits, you can influence how much food is in the supermarket and thus even how much is produced or imported to the Netherlands.
So if you were to eat less, this could allow other countries to import cheaper food; what would otherwise have gone to the Netherlands.
10 kilometers a day to eat
There are people who eat so much that their stomachs explode. I find that absolutely brutal, that that is possible. Well there are only a few cases of that, but I think that's intense!
This trend is becoming deadlier. The trend of eating a lot, overeating, eat your plate empty, oh scoop some more, we have enough. Yes. We have enough too!
We walk through a supermarket and we have gathered all our food within 10-15 minutes. Where we used to, 40,000 years ago, you had to hobble through a forest, or a savannah for 4 hours to gather food. Balanced food. Maybe you had another animal you could catch, but that really took you 4, 5 hours. Just to gather that food. You had the rest of the day off so that was kind of nice. So you were walking about 10km a day. 4 hours of collecting that food. Well, you gathered your food and then you went and ate it and that was it. And the next day it was like that again. Approximately then huh? That was your life. Lots of exercise, not too much food but enough.
Besides the fact that it's just much easier now than it used to be to get food, we also naturally move less. In the days of hunters and gatherers, it was quite normal to walk 10 kilometers a day to get your nutrition.
Now this is absolutely no longer necessary. For most people, the supermarket is only 500 meters away at most. So then all that moving is unnecessary.
In the process, you also ate less back then because you found less and because you were working to travel those 10 kilometers to nutrition.
So at that point you didn't eat.
This has all become much easier now.
In fact, some people just have it delivered. Then they bring it into the kitchen, put the bag down. A little while longer and they'll prepare it and throw it in your mouth and you can stay on the couch Netflixing. Another minute and you'll be fed by some robot and you won't do anything at all, you know? That's some dangerous shit.
Hazard
There’s also a very different sense of danger now than there used to be. We all live in sturdy brick houses these days. So when you’re at home, you’re pretty safe.
In the old days, we didn't have stone houses. We did have huts made of sods, but not stone. So beasts could disturb your sleep and you were much concerned with your own protection and safety.
Again, no time to eat so.
Now we don't have any of that at all, which is nice and easy.
Children and playing outside
Looking at how children live now, it is striking that most children play outside much less than when I was young. In the early 1980s, back then all we did was play outside! Nowadays, those kids do much less. Outdoor playtime is traded in for screens. And there are really good educational programs out there, I'm not talking about that. But between the ages of 1 and 7, it is much better for a child to play outside, to learn social interaction and motor skills. Besides, the eyes are still developing until that age, that's just biology.
Children need to play outside for several reasons. Playing outside with other children improves their social development. They become better at making connections, forming friendships, and collaborating with others (after all, building a fort is a lot easier with help).
In addition, it helps develop motor skills because they are physically active. As a result, they move more, which is also very helpful in preventing overweight.
More and more children also suffer from poorer eye development due to staying indoors and then need glasses. These are costs they have to pay for themselves in their adult lives. So yes, it's easy for a while now, but how easy will you make your child's life with it?
When I look around my neighborhood, I see a lot of fat kids. You used to have 1 fat kid in your class so to speak, and we would call him "fat. If you were unlucky he'd grab you and sit on you and you'd never do it again! But now when you say, "Hey fatty!" 13 kids look back! That's just half the class. And not a little fat, but really fat with bellies and then they're 10 years old you know? And then I think: How is it possible? But yes they eat, they don't move much, and they look at a screen. In the long run, that makes them die earlier or get sick earlier. Of course there are exceptions. But we call them exceptions for a reason. If you start with bad habits, a bad hypnosis because it's nice and easy. Then your life will become difficult later. You better go for the hard things:
Fewer screens - Oh, hard ...
Eating better - Ah, so hard....
Moving more - Pfoe, hard ...
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Step out of the hypnosis of convenience
"If you go for the hard things in life now then your life will be easier later", is a quote that can really help you.
Brian Tracy also says "Eat that frog. Start doing the hard stuff first and then the rest.
People today who all do the easy things and avoid the hard. What do they create as a result? A difficult life. Get out of that hypnosis! Make yourself more uncomfortable again. Stretch the comfort zone. Start moving more, start doing some more things. Turn off those screens. Get out of that bubble and think more.
By eating healthy, exercising daily (for example, taking 10,000 steps a day), and continuing to grow, you ensure your long-term health.
Teaching this to your child will also ensure that your child stays healthy in the long run.
Or at least you won’t have to blame yourself if he develops type 2 diabetes as a young adult.
It can also be helpful for yourself to learn to do something alongside your work to develop yourself. This increases the likelihood of greater success later in life.
Who knows, you might even start a business because of it, which means that at some point you no longer have to work for a boss and you can set your own hours. Now that's nice and easy.
But that means you have to put up with some discomfort for a while.
Scientific research - which compared working hours of Americans with those of Germans - found that Americans worked longer hours because it often paid more than in Germany. This was partly because working harder in Germany does not pay as much as in America because the tax system is different.
However, in both countries, there was a correlation between people who worked more and those who were promoted more often or earned more[2].
Hypnosis to do the right things
Whether it's to pay more attention to people you care about in order to have a long-term relationship with them, or to develop yourself and put hours into your work so that later you at least have a nice piggy bank and the knowledge working to be relevant in the job market.
It is always important to do the right things for this purpose, and unfortunately what is right is not always easy.
Resolving a disagreement, offering a (sincere) apology, or empathizing with someone else. If you find this difficult, you could easily lose many relationships and connections. That’s a real shame.
But why not do this? Why do you choose convenience and thus an increasingly small group of friends?
Why not choose to invest time in relationships when it can actually make you happy and content in the long run?
With hypnosis, you can find out why you have certain patterns in your life that you actually want to change. Once you know through hypnosis why you do what you do, you can then use hypnosis to change these behaviors as well.
For example, you can imagine where you want to be a year from now with your relationships or with the way you earn your money.
You can then work with the hypnotherapist to create a step-by-step plan to achieve this goal. You do this while under hypnosis. Testimonials from clients of hypnotherapists who have completed our training program show that this approach is effective in actually achieving specific life goals and a greater sense of ease in life.
Thoughts become things
Something else that hypnosis can help you with is changing your thoughts or at least changing the focus of your thoughts. This can be done, for example, by retrieving certain hypnotic suggestions during therapy, but also at home with self-hypnosis.
During therapy, a hypnotherapist will find out for you what suggestions best fit your beliefs and goals. These may include suggestions such as:
"I do what is wise."
"I do what it takes to make things better."
"I am an ameliorator of my world."
"Long-term success is smarter than short-term happiness."
These are just examples. Depending on your beliefs about when something is the way you want it, a hypnotherapist may give you other suggestions.
You can then repeat these kinds of suggestions at home during self-hypnosis.
Want to know what hypnosis feels like and whether you can hypnotize people? Then join the free online masterclass on hypnosis.
Would you like to see hypnosis in action and help people feel good through hypnosis? Then come to a hypnosis seminar.
Do you want to help people get the most out of their lives right away? Then sign up for one of our training programs. They are offered in Wormerveer, Zwolle, and online.
[1] https://www.geenstijl.nl/5152737/dikke-kortings-sla-uw-slag-in-de-supermarkt/
[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0927537101000306